


Nyilak és Fegyverek

by POPP_Writing_Group



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Backstory, Budapest, F/M, Natasha Romanoff - Freeform, Original Characters - Freeform, What Happened in Budapest, clint barton - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2019-01-07 00:55:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12222462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/POPP_Writing_Group/pseuds/POPP_Writing_Group
Summary: Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff never talk about what happened in Budapest. . . because that would mean talking about their emotions.





	1. In Which Natasha Observes A Goat

**Author's Note:**

> Written by: Kayla

Clint hasn't said a word since the two men chained him to the other side of the post, and Natasha's starting to get worried. Although she can't see him, chained back to back like they are, she can hear his ragged breathing and focuses on that.

Inhale.

Exhale.

A seemingly endless pause before the next breath. Natasha tries to banish the nagging thought that he might not inhale after the pause after a time, tries to banish all worries that won't help them escape.

She closes her eyes and allows her mind to clear. There is nothing but the wooden post at her back, the cold chain around her chest, the pebbled ground beneath her legs. She takes in a deep breath and _listens_ , keeping her eyes shut to avoid any distractions. Fire crackles and spits to her right, perhaps three or five feet away. The shouts and calls in the native language that had been so loud before they brought Clint to the post are now gone, and she guesses they are all inside some building, discussing what to do with the two spies they had captured. Wind moans, blowing hot, comfortless air over them.

Startlingly close, an animal bleats-- a goat?

Natasha opens her eyes. Yes, a scraggly-looking reddish goat is picking at the dead grass near the post. It's the only thing moving in the old village-like area, and Natasha is glad for its arrival.

Then her eyes open wide. A goat. Fire. Watchful natives. Could it work?

Testing the beginnings of what could be an escape plan, she carefully maneuvers her hands up to the tight chain binding her to the post and Clint. Tight, yes, but not so much so that it is impossible to escape from. However, the chain would be the easy part. She decides to test the next part of her burgeoning plan.

She pushes up the chain and slips out. As she stands, it's as if a bomb has gone off. Every door explodes with men, rushing out to stop her from escaping. As they crowd around her in a tight circle, sixteen guns are pointed at her head, eleven machetes are brandished, and three large men step out and force her to her knees. The largest one grabs a pistol from one of the circling men and presses it against her head.

Natasha's mind is racing. She had intended on not letting the natives know all she was capable of, but if they're planning on executing her, she'll have to use her training. She can't leave Clint alone with no way to escape. From her new vantage point, she can see him-- even though the chain is loosened, he makes no attempt to escape, and his head lolls between his knees. He's unconscious, and Nat can see why-- his face is mottled with enormous bruises.

Anger rises in her stomach, but she pushes it down. There'll be plenty of time for revenge once they escape. And they can't escape if she's dead, so back to the problem at hand.

The large man with the gun is yelling in the native tongue she'd encountered ever since coming to Budapest-- Hungarian, she knows, but she's never had time to learn the language, and she can only pick out a few words. Three of them are obscenities, one is “spies” another is “kill”-- this is repeated several times to cheers from most of the crowd of men. Natasha tenses, realizing that she'll have to put her escape plan into motion in a matter of seconds if the man decides to kill her. She calculates what it would take to take out most of the men, grab Clint, steal a vehicle, and get out of the country. It's practically impossible in her mind, but she knows she has to try. She takes a deep breath and readies herself.

_"Bolond!"_

The cry comes from one of the older men, and Nat recognizes the word as “fool”. The old man keeps talking, his tiny eyes, buried in hills of fat, flickering deviously around at the group of men. He points at Natasha and Clint, and his jabbering rises in pitch as he rubs his finger and thumb together and nods smugly. Natasha guesses his meaning.

_We're worth a lot._

She considers simply putting the escape plan on hold and waiting for the men to demand a ransom from S.H.I.E.L.D., or sell them off to whoever else wanted to buy top secret agents. She can think of at least three other groups that would be interested, and rates the options in seconds in her head. True, it would be humiliating, but it would give Clint time to recover from. . .

Natasha restrains herself from looking at him again, knowing it would only cloud her judgment. No. If they stay here at the natives' mercy, who knows what worse things could happen.

Nat spins on her knees to face the group of men. They all look at her with disgust on their faces, and she knows they are despising her for not being weak and helpless. For being a woman and still a top agent who infiltrated their crime society. Normally, Natasha would be filled with quiet pride about crushing their stereotypes, but now she knows it could bring her plans crashing down around her.

_Fine. They want weak and helpless? They've got it._

  
Natasha crumples onto the ground, sobbing. Through her tears, she lifts up her face imploringly to the man with the gun and whimpers in Russian, “You sons of hairless turtles. You'll pay for what you did to Clint, I swear. I'll give all your dirty secrets to S.H.I.E.L.D., and they'll destroy you.”

Even though they don't understand her words, her pleading tone does the trick. The large man scoffs and puts his gun away. Grabbing her by the hair, he drags Natasha over to the post and chains her again, pulling it tighter than before. A groan comes from Clint-- the first noise he's made, which gives Nat hope, but the large man says something in a derisive tone and kicks Clint as he walks away. Natasha stiffens, but keeps her face a mask of tears until the group of men has dispersed back into the building and the only thing left is the goat.

  
Interminable moments pass by until she hears a weak, painful chuckle from Clint. “Boy, Fury really knows how to pick the missions, doesn't he?”

  
“You're alive. That's all that matters,” Natasha says, unable to put into words how thankful she is to hear his voice.

  
There's a pause, and she hears a few grunts as he takes in all of his wounds. “Well. . . I wouldn't say it's _all_ that matters.”

  
“What happened? _What did they do, Clint?”_ Nat knows she's giving away too much emotion to the men that are surely watching her, but she can't help the shiver of rage that goes through her voice. The memory of his face, purpled with bruises, feeds her anger. She arches her neck against the wood of the post and closes her eyes, trying to calm herself.

Clint is quiet for a moment, as if he's trying to choose his words carefully, like a field agent picking the right wire to cut to defuse a bomb. Natasha gets the sense he's just as afraid of setting her off as he would an actual bomb.

  
“They didn't do much,” he says finally. “Or at least. . . not too much.”

  
“You were _unconscious.”_ She hears the cold fury in her voice and hates herself for it. She's not angry at Clint.

  
“Tell you what, Protective Mama Bear, why don't I save the gory details for after our escape? I assume you have a plan?”

  
Natasha takes a deep breath and lets it out with a brief smile. Clint has successfully defused the bomb. “Yes. Go to sleep.”

  
There's another pause. There are a thousand and one questions he could ask here, but he doesn't. She feels his shrug, and he settles down against the post to try and find a comfortable position. He mutters “Ow. . .” and then becomes still. All except for his hand, which reaches behind him and takes hers. Their fingers lace loosely together, and she hears him mumble, “I trust you, Nat.”

  
“I trust you, too,” she says, and leans back against the post to wait out the night.


	2. In Which Clint Flashes Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint doesn't like flashbacks, but he's tied to a pole and he can't do anything about it.

Clint can't decide whether Natasha's asleep or not, and he's not about to talk to her to find out in case she really is asleep. His hand is still tangled in hers, but she's not moving or doing anything to help him either way. He knows she thinks he's asleep, or at least she had before the question of whether she was awake was raised in Clint's mind. He stays still, slumped in as comfortable position as he can against the pole, and takes in all the quiet stillness of the village at night. The air, which had been so acrid and hot before the cover of darkness fell over the sky, is now cooler and almost refreshing in smell.

_It's almost peaceful_ , he thinks, then bites back a wry laugh as he mentally compares his opinion of the village now to what he had thought of it a few hours before. No, it hadn't exactly been peaceful then. 

At that unconscious thought, memories appear in his mind, and he grunts in annoyance. Usually, when an unpleasant memory comes back to him, he can ignore it by doing some distracting physical activity. Sometimes he runs, or empties his quiver over and over at the same target, or tests his other skills that need more practice to keep up on, like hand-to-hand combat or acrobatics.

As his current situation rather prevents him from doing anything of that kind, he doesn't do anything to avoid the memory except sit there, slightly tensed, and remember. . . . . . . . . 

_“Ki kuldott?!”_ The voice is both angry and loud, and Clint is slightly thankful that there's no subtlety, no soft-spoken questions designed to trip him into confessing something. Although he's had nearly the same spy training as Natasha, interrogations were her specialty, and he would be the first to admit he didn't have any particular skill in that area. However, a yelling man who didn't bother to translate his words couldn't be about to conduct an interrogation. He was probably going to try and intimidate Clint instead. 

As if in response to that thought, the man curls his hand into a fist. Before Clint's eyes can widen, the man hits him in the jaw so hard the chair he's tied to almost tips over. 

Clint gasps in pain, trying to open his mouth to be sure it still works. W _ow, he sure knows how to intimidate a guy. Yes, I was right. Brute force and no translator? This isn't an interrogation._

“American scum.”

Clint closes his eyes, mentally swearing. _I jinxed myself._

The translator steps up next to the other man. “You can't even be bothered to learn our language before you come sneaking in here like rats!”

“Well,” Clint says, resigned now to the fact that this is, indeed, an interrogation, “I know German. Does that count?” Raising his eyebrows, he adds, _“Sie_ _sind spektakular_ _hasslich, Sir.”_

The translator ignores his insult, leaning forward. “We will ask you questions, and you will answer them.”

“That sounds like fun.” 

The translator blinks in surprise, then looks irritated. “If you do not answer to our liking, you will suffer. Do you understand, scum?” 

Clint puts a wounded expression on his face. “Now, that's just hurtful.” 

The large man growls and steps forward. Clint looks up at him unconcernedly. He can feel the mark on his jaw throbbing harder with each second, and he does feel a bit vulnerable tied to the chair like he is, but he hides all of it beneath a mask of indifference, just like Nat had showed him over and over. It was uncanny, how she could change her expressions so quickly. 

_That's why she's the master spy_ , Clint reminds himself, _and you're just the muscle and good looks department._

The translator's nasal voice cuts into his thoughts. “Who sent you?” 

Clint sighs internally and braces himself as he answers in a neutral voice, “No one sent me. I came here on vacation.” 

The punch from the large man comes faster than he expects, hitting him in the eye and snapping his head back. He sees a white lightning bolt inside his brain on impact, and is unable to contain another gasp. The dark little room, when he opens his eyes, is blurry. 

_Even though Nat would be better at this, I'm sure glad it's me they're asking questions to,_ he thinks in some faraway corner of his brain. 

As if he can read Clint's mind, the translator speaks again. “Why is the woman with you? Is she your wife?”

Seeing a way out for Natasha, he says, “Yes, she's my wife. We came here on vacation.” 

“Then explain what she did when we captured you!” 

Picturing the acrobatics Nat used when she fought, Clint sighs in frustration. “She takes martial arts, and you startled her,” he says as calmly as he can. “We're harmless tourists.” 

The man hits him twice this time, yelling something furiously in Hungarian. Clint begins to realize, in the part of his brain that can still realize things, that there's not going to be an easy way out of this interrogation. Blinking furiously, he straightens up and tries to formulate a plan to escape, but he can't think of anything, he can't _think_ \-- 

The translator grabs the chair and leans into Clint's face, breathing out spittle with every word. “Who sent you, American filth? Answer me now, or you will be killed!” 

_Natasha. I can't leave her here._

_But I can't betray S.H.I.E.L.D., either._

_I have to survive this._

Clint spits out a mouthful of blood in a manner half contemptuous and half necessary to do if he doesn't want to choke. He glares up at the translator and growls, “No one sent me.” The translator steps back, his face both angry and incredulous at Clint's refusal to cooperate. Clint stares at him, breathing

The translator steps back, his face both angry and incredulous at Clint's refusal to cooperate. Clint stares at him, breathing hard, until he looks away.

As the translator signals the large man again, Clint takes a deep breath and braces himself one more time. And when the blow comes, he angles his face toward it so that upon impact, everything goes black.

 


	3. In Which An Escape Is Attempted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha has a plan.

“If you're awake, Nat,” Natasha hears Clint mumble, and she opens her eyes, “how about letting me in on this escape plan of yours?”

She nods, then realizes he can't see her, and sits up against the pole. “It's almost morning. Did you sleep at all? You'll need your full strength.”

“Oh, good.” A pause, then cheerfully: “I think I slept enough.”

“Good,” she says, although she doesn't believe him one bit. “Do you see that goat?”

He twists from the other side of the pole to try and see what she sees. “Uh. . . yes. The one sleeping?”

“Yes. If I can get it to knock over the cooking fire-- to my right, Clint,” she adds as he twists again. She hears him huff in frustration.

“Well, I'm sorry, it's not my fault I'm tied to the boring side of the pole,” he says, and stops turning. “Okay, so the goat knocks over the cooking fire, and then?”

Nat squints one eye shut and observes the flickering fire critically. “If it falls right, it'll set fire to that pile of straw, which will spread and create a large enough distraction for us to escape.”

There's a long silence from Clint. Natasha knows his silences almost as well as his expressions, and this one doesn't seem happy.

Finally, he speaks. “Just once,” he says. “Just once, we couldn't have asked for an extraction team?”

Natasha sighs.

“I mean, I know we never have extractions, but couldn't we have put aside our “We're-the-top- agents-who-never-need-extractions pride for once and had an easy way out? Now the question of whether we live or die is being decided by a _goat!”_

“Okay, it's not perfect,” Nat says, knowing he's just nervous, and has every right to be. Those objections were the same ones her rational mind had raised over the course of the night, but she doesn't have another plan. She has no idea where their weapons are, and they won't get more than three feet without them if there isn't a distraction.

She tells him this, and although he still doesn't seem particularly happy, he agrees. They both know that if they want to get out here alive, working together as one is necessary. Even if the plan's less than perfect.

A lot less than perfect.

They talk it over in quick, hushed tones, knowing that time advances relentlessly whether they've gone over the plan or not, and morning will be on them in minutes. Nat feels around for the tiny piece of food she had seen on the ground near the post, grips it tightly in her hand, tells Clint last-minute details and listens to his questions. She imagines the escape going smoothly, perfectly, flawlessly. Closing her eyes, she whispers, “Ready?”

Hearing the sharp exhale that always accompanies Clint's nods, she opens her eyes and kicks the goat, trying to wake it up.

All at once, she sees she won't have any need for the small piece of food she'd planned on baiting the animal with. The goat bleats in surprise, stumbles to its feet, and runs blindly away, knocking into the grate that holds the fire hard as it does. The grate tilts ever so slowly and falls to the ground, hitting with a crash.

Natasha lets out a small breath of triumph in the same second Clint yells, “No!”'

In an instant, she sees why. The fire had fallen the wrong way. Instead of spreading towards the heap of straw, it's coming toward them. Coals, skittering wildly from the force of the fall, come dangerously close to their legs and feet. And the fire is getting closer to the pole.

“Nat,” Clint says, very calmly, “how about we _don't_ get burned at the stake today?”

“I _know,”_ she says, then groans in frustration. Drawn by the crash, men are streaming out of the buildings, yelling, confused. She feels Clint strain slightly against the chain.

“Okay, Nat, we gotta get out of here before the fire--”

“No,” she says urgently, trying to remain calm and ration her thoughts. “The men are out now. I saw what happened when I escaped last time. They'll kill us if they see us escape again.”

Clint huffs in repressed panic. “We can't just sit here. We'll die anyway.”

“Not if--” She breaks off, unconsciously pulling against the chain as a coal gets too close. Clint grunts as her movement pulls it tighter around him. “Not if they let us go themselves.”

The men are converging into some kind of order, beginning to realize what was happening. Clint takes in a breath. “Talk to them. Yell at them.”

Nat thinks,  _German is close to_ Hungarian, and shouts at the men _“Holen Sie uns hier raus!”_

Clint jerks upright, as if he were suddenly remembering something. “Nat, one of the men speaks English!”

Nat processes this in a second and opens her mouth to shout, but Clint is already yelling, “Hey! If you want any information out of us, you'd better get us out of this!”

There's a murmur of indecision from the crowd, but after a pause, a thin, greasy-looking man pushes through the group and moves toward them. As the flames lick around the base of the pole, it takes all of Natasha's willpower to stay still as the man unlocks the chain and pulls them up.

Standing on her feet for the first time in over a day, Nat doesn't take time to be thankful. As if she and Clint can read each other's mind, they both break the man's hold on them and run. But Nat knows they don't have a chance. The plan was doubtful at best when there was a distraction. Now every eye is fixed on them, and stopping them from escaping is the priority in every mind.

Before she can sense anything, before she can react, she is tackled by some huge mass of a person and thrown to the ground. The man calmly presses the barrel of a gun to her head and pins her arms to her sides. With her cheek pressed against the dusty ground, she hears a cry of pain from Clint.

_We had to try,_ she tells herself. But inwardly, there's a deep, sickening worry that she's only brought more trouble on the two of them.

Large, moist hands grip her arms and pull her to her feet, the gun never leaving her head.

_“Gyerünk,”_ the man says roughly into her ear. The group of men swarm around her as he pushes her toward the largest building. The men holding Clint follow. Nat glances at him, trying to convey a thousand messages with her eyes, but Clint's bruised face is white with pain, and he stares straight ahead.

_I'm sorry. . ._ she thinks miserably. They haven't hurt her at all, but they've done who knows what to Clint. Guilt is creeping up on her from all sides.

They are shoved inside a dark room and forcibly put into chairs. The threat of many guns pointed at them keeps Natasha from moving as her hands are tied to the arms of the chair. The men are yelling, jabbering on in Hungarian, and although she would love to yell right back at them, she restrains herself. She can't risk the men snapping and simply killing them.

Then Clint says, very quietly, “Nat.”

She looks at him, and he lifts his chin to indicate, piled in a far corner of the room, what they need now most of all. Their weapons.

Nat takes in a breath. In an instant, a plan comes to her, and she's about to try and tell Clint when a heavily accented voice interrupts her.

“So you try to escape!” The greasy-looking man who had freed them from the pole steps forward. “We have captured you and yet you still think you can get away from us, you dirty Americans!”

“I'm Russian,” Natasha retorts. She sees Clint give her a quick glance, but doesn't have time to wonder what it means.

“Ah,” the man says, and looks slightly interested. “Maybe you will be more cooperative than your husband.”

_Husband,_ she thinks, glancing accusingly at Clint. He gives her a brief shrug.

Turning back to the man, she puts on a hopeful, pleading look. “I'll tell you whatever you want as long as you don't kill me!”

The man shifts his attention to Clint. He gives him a sneer as he says, “Your wife is smarter than you, American. You would have done better to tell us what we wanted in the beginning.”

“No, Scarlett,” Clint says, using the code name they had agreed on before. “Don't tell them anything!”

They look at each other and silently agree to have Natasha feed the men false information. She raises her eyebrows, indicating she's going to take it a step further to make it more believable.

“Jeremy, I have to,” she says, bringing up his code name to confirm the deception. She starts to cry as she says, “I don't want to die. I didn't even want to come here with you! Why did you bring me?”

The man's smug sneer grows as Nat continues. She speaks to him now, hoping her tears are working. “What do you want to know? I'll tell you! Just don't hurt me!”

The man leans in, clearly satisfied with her show of weakness. “Who sent your husband?”

Nat notices that he doesn't say “who sent _you”_. He doesn't think she is involved, which means her plan is working.

She glances at Clint, then back at the man.

“Don't be afraid of him,” the man says soothingly. “You're safe. You can tell us.”

Nat sniffs, pretending to be slowly won over by his obviously false attitude of gentleness. She glances up at him shyly, bashfully. “Could-- could you untie me, please?” she says, her voice hopeful. “The ropes are so tight.” The man looks doubtful, but this gives Nat hope that her trickery is working.

“Please, sir,” she adds, hoping to appeal to his ego. “I won't do anything.”

The man's face turns condescending. “I'm sure you couldn't, anyway, little one,” he says, patting her cheek. Natasha recoils inwardly, but stays still, smiling at him gratefully. The man snatches a knife from one of the watching men and cuts the ropes binding her wrists.

Natasha stands, pretending to be dizzy, and grabs onto the man for “support.” What she really does is palm his knife and hide it in her sleeve. She sees a glimpse of Clint's amused face before she turns her full attention to the man.

“Oh, thank you!” she says, and in a move that seems totally impulsive but is actually planned and calculated to the tiniest detail, she grabs his face and kisses him. The man grunts, surprised, but doesn't pull away. Grinning inside, Nat walks him slowly toward the corner that their weapons are piled in, still kissing him. When she stops, her back is toward the pile of weapons, a knife is concealed in her hand, and she has the man who appears to leader disoriented and believing her to be harmless.

It's the perfect position, but she is not prepared in the least for what he says next.

“We have no more use for the man. Kill him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave comments if you enjoy the story so far!


	4. In Which We See Why Not To Mess With Black Widow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint gets himself saved.

Clint hears the words as they come out of the man's mouth and sees the cruel sneer on his greasy, sweaty face-- _how could Nat have stood kissing him_ , he wonders distractedly-- but he knows better than to be worried. Maybe in another life where his best friend in the whole world _wasn't_ a master spy and _didn't_ have access to most of their weapons and the leader of this rabble within arm's reach. Maybe in that life, Clint would have been worried. More likely in that life, Clint would have been dead.

Thankfully, in _this_ life, Clint has Natasha. An angry Natasha. An angry Black Widow. Clint sees it in her eyes the instant the man says the words-- she's no S.H.I.E.L.D agent anymore. She has slipped fully into that part of herself that S.H.I.E.L.D detected as a threat, once upon a time, and sent an agent to take her out. A really handsome agent. A really handsome agent who took one look at the infamous Black Widow and saw the same thing that's growing on Natasha's face right now. A cold-blooded, predatory killer. 

Clint loves it. 

Natasha reacts in less time than it takes the man to say “kill him”. Clint hears the sound of a gun being cocked, but no one's pointing one at his head-- yet. It's Nat, who presses one to the side of the man's head and calmly reaches behind her again, grabbing as many weapons as she can with one arm. She walks the man, whose shock is starting to be overcome with fury, in front of the chair Clint's sitting in and passes Clint the knife she palmed. As Clint awkwardly cuts the ropes binding his wrists to the arms of the chair, he sees the group of men looking startled, unsure. 

One says, _“Mit tehetünk?”_

Nat now has the leader as an effective human shield as she gives Clint his weapons and puts her other pistol in her waistband. The leader is swearing freely now, slipping back into Hungarian as his rage makes him lose his mastery of English. 

Clint pulls his bow over his head and grabs up the handful of arrows Nat had managed to get. His quiver is still lying in the corner, but now several men have pulled their guns and he can't risk going to get it. Natasha hisses into the man's ear, “You are going to let us go or die. Tell your men to stand down!”

The man stops swearing long enough to spit. Then he snarls, Hungarian mixing in with his English, “ _Bolondok!_ You won't escape!  _Az embereim megölnek téged!_

“Well, that's great,” Nat says and motions for Clint to get behind her as she starts backing out the door of the building. As Clint does so, he catches the leader's eyes and can't resist saying, very quietly, “Who's the scum now?” 

The man bares his teeth at him in an almost feral manner. They are yellowed and have globs of food stuck between them, and Clint feels a pang of sympathy for Natasha for the second time that day. 

He turns away from the man and puts an arrow to the string of his bow, then aims it into the crowd of men, holding them off as he and Nat retreat out the door. The group of men hang back as they take the first steps away, but the leader snarls at them viciously and they begin pressing after Natasha and Clint. Clint lifts his bow higher and points his arrow straight at one of them. He can't be sure, but it looks like the large man the leader conducted the interrogation with. The large man shrinks back as he realizes the point of the arrow is focused on him, and ducks behind another man. The man he tries to hide behind yells indignantly and pushes him away, then hides behind another person himself. Clint patiently follows each man with his arrow, and before long almost every man is yelling and ducking and trying to hide.

Nat takes several steps backwards, trying to get ahead of the mob. Clint looks up at her and whispers, “Plan?” 

“I'm working on it,” she says tensely. Not the answer he was hoping for, but he doesn't say anything. They're in a dangerous enough situation as it is. 

Clint suddenly finds his legs hitting an enormous pile of rubble that's blocking his path, and turns to look at it. It might once have been a store or building, but now it's completely destroyed.

_It could be cover if things get bad_ , he thinks, and then immediately wishes he hadn't thought about things going bad. The mob of men have circled around and cut off their escape, trapping them against the pile of rubble. They are still several feet away from Clint and Natasha, but they begin closing in.

The man Nat has laughs, spit spraying, and says “You're _finished.”_  

“Not as long as we have you,” Nat says. Clint sees her fingers twitching and knows she desperately wants to pull out her second gun and start shooting. But she can't. She needs both hands to hang on to the man, who is starting to twist and pull. Nat shoves the pistol harder into his temple to stop him. 

“Tell your men to back off,” Clint says, teeth clenched, “or we'll kill you.” 

The man looks at him, then glances up at Nat. And then suddenly, inexplicably, he laughs. Before Clint can process what the laugh means, the man is yelling _“Nem fognak megölni! Gyerünk!”_

The group of men starts walking with deadly purpose toward them.

“No!” Natasha yells, pushing the pistol against the man's head. “We'll kill him!”

“Then do it, _nyápic,"_ the man says, and his sneer confirms Clint's worst fear. He knows Nat can't kill him. What he doesn't know is that Nat isn't Nat right now.

Clint looks at Nat and realizes that the Black Widow hasn't gone away. Her eyes turn cold and calm, and she steps out toward the men and forces the leader to his knees. Clint sees the sneer on his face turn into horror so quickly it might be funny if it wasn't so very serious. The approaching men stop as one and start yelling, pleading, jabbering on, but Natasha ignores them.

“Nat,” Clint says urgently, trying to step up to her and talk to her, but she holds out her hand and pushes him back.

“Nat, _no!”_ Clint yells, but he's too late as the sound of a gunshot shatters the tense air.

When he looks up, panting, he sees a blackened hole in the ground next to the kneeling man, and Nat standing there, head bent. She kicks the man to his feet and pushes him toward the group of men.

“Now let us go,” she says, low and deadly.

The man catches himself and stumbles to his feet, then turns toward Nat, disgust on his face. “You are _weak,”_ he spits. “You are a filthy spy and you will _never_ leave here alive!”

Then he turns and begins yelling in Hungarian to the group of men, presumably telling them the same thing. Clint and Natasha jump behind the pile of rubble. “Cover,” Clint pants, and Nat nods. When they are behind it, he grabs Nat's arm, knowing they only have a few moments before the men are upon them, but unwilling to let her act go by in silence.

“You're not a killer anymore,” he says, locking his eyes on her. “I'm not, either. We get out of here, but we do it the right way. You did good, Nat.”

She meets his gaze and nods, then grabs her dual pistols. “Disabling shots only.”

Clint mirrors her nod. “Let's take 'em down.”

They stand up together and begin shooting as one.


	5. In Which Clint's Quiver Is Useful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint is worried about Natasha. Natasha is worried about Clint. That's it, that's the story. Enjoy.

The first few seconds of shooting are a blur to Nat. One part of her is all too aware of the kick of her guns as they fire, the snap of Clint's bowstring beside her, and the screams coming from the men she shoots-- screams of pain and anger, but not death.

The other, larger part of her processes things in a daze. It seems she has done what her instructors at the Red Room drilled her over and over not to do-- let the stress catch up to her. The stress of fighting and lying and manipulating and worrying, worrying, _worrying_ about Clint has snuck up on her at the worst time and she is not handling it well.

_Breathe,_ she tells herself, even as the deafening shots explode dangerously near, even as the world around her dissolves into chaos. _Breathe. Focus on the mission. The mission is all that matters._

Only she knows that isn't true. Not really. She hasn't worked alone for years, not since Clint found her. Ever since then, he's always been by her side. Having her back. Watching out for her even as she watches out for him.

  
The mission isn't all that matters. Not anymore.

  
And with that thought, Natasha snaps back into focus so sharply it's as if she's waking from a dream.

  
Just in time, as it turns out, because now almost twenty men have pulled out guns of their own and started on the offensive with desperate, frantic energy. Nat keeps shooting with deadly precision in each bullet, but she takes in the mob with a spy's eye and quickly calculates the numbers.

“I count around fifty,” she says in short, stress-clipped tones to Clint. He doesn't look at her, or she at him, but they don't need acknowledgment in a battle like this. “Twenty have guns. Eleven have knives or machetes.

  
“All the rest are unarmed,” she continues, ducking down to her knees as a bullet ricochets off the side of the rubble. “Can you get the leader?”

  
The skinny, sweaty-looking man is hiding behind the mass of men, but Nat can hear his voice screaming _“Öld meg őket!”_

Even with her rudimentary knowledge of Hungarian, she can tell that doesn't mean anything good.

  
Clint nods. “Cover me.”

  
Nat shifts her pistols to target the men who are aiming their guns at Clint as he steps out to get a clear shot. Bullets hit one man in the shoulder, another in the leg, and one, who had actually fired at Clint before Nat could get to him, has his gun knocked out of his hands with a bullet from Nat's gun, sending the shot wildly spinning away from Clint.

Clint kneels down on one knee, pulls the bowstring taut, and lets an arrow fly. It slices through the air with an eerily audible whistle, and buries itself in the man's gut. As he bellows in pain, Clint jumps back over the pile of rubble.

“I've got no stomach for that kind of thing,” he mutters to Nat. There's a brief let-up in the shooting as men flock to their leader.

“He's not dead,” she says. “And he would have killed _you._ He deserves it.”

“Does anyone deserve that?”

“That's not a question you should be asking, Clint,” Nat says.

He looks away and puts another arrow to his string, readying himself. “Apparently it's not a question I can have an answer to, either.”

Natasha doesn't know what to tell him. She can understand not wanting to kill people, if possible. But he wouldn't be a S.H.I.E.L.D agent, wouldn't have a _bow_ as his weapon of choice if he wasn't okay with hurting bad people.

Then she understands. Clint operates with his quiver as an extension of his bow. His quiver has almost limitless options for special arrows, and with those, he rarely needs to hurt people as badly as he's being forced to now with plain arrows.

Nat doesn't have time to consider the implications of this before she's shooting again. The mob, shouting with rage, is swarming their position so quickly it's all she can do to deliver non-fatal shots.And there's another problem, she realizes in between gunshots. Although her S.H.I.E.L.D issued

And there's another problem, she realizes in between gunshots. Although her S.H.I.E.L.D issued guns have an extended amount of ammunition, they're not limitless.

A bullet whistles, slicing the side of her arm. She grits her teeth and ducks down behind the pile of rubble. The men have stopped advancing, but they haven't stopped shooting.

_We're at a stalemate,_ she thinks grimly. _One that could too easily turn to their favor._

She's bound to run out bullets soon. With almost twenty men of the fifty out there with rifles, pistols, and even ancient guns that spit out buckshot, the chances of their enemies running out of ammunition before she does are not good.

With a shock, she remembers Clint. She looks over sharply to see him turn away from the mob and kneel down on the other side of the pile with her. His eyes are hard and tense.

“Ammo, Nat,” he says.

“I know,” she answers tightly, standing up to shoot and crouching down again. “Any ideas?”

“Now _I_ have to be the idea department?”

“Given the success of _my_ ideas so far,” Nat says, then breaks off as a bullet hits the pile dangerously close. She returns fire and ducks down again. Turning back to Clint, she continues, “I'm all for your ideas.”

Clint half-smiles. “I suppose now isn't a good time to tell you I only have three arrows left?”

“You came here with, like, 300!”

“Yes, and most of them are in my _quiver,”_ he snaps back. Then he stares, as if realizing something. “My quiver.”

Natasha hands him one of her guns. “You keeps working on that plan, all right, chief?”

“No, Nat, listen,” he says, but cuts off as the men begin shooting and advancing on them again. They both turn and fire back, and Nat notices with a growing sense of hopelessness that the mob doesn't seem to have gotten any smaller. Even the wounded ones are firing their guns and throwing knives, although none of the knives reach them. The men are shrieking at her, and their gestures and manner

The men are shrieking at her, and their gestures and manner convey their meaning perfectly, even if their Hungarian doesn't. Nat comes back with a few insults of her own in Russian, more for her own benefit than anything else.

" _Natasha,”_ Clint says urgently. “Listen!”

She turns sharply to face him. _“Clinton,”_ she says sarcastically. “I'm listening.”

“If I can get my quiver,” he says tersely, “I can load a gas arrow and take them all out non-fatally.”

Natasha stares at him, unable to believe she hadn't thought of that. “Clint, that's brilliant.”

“It's back in the building we came from,” Clint says, then grunts in frustration as he's forced to break off and return fire with Nat's gun. When he turns back to her, she's already shaking her head. He talks over her as she tries to protest, and she can see he's anticipated her dislike of his plan. “If I jump out, I can make it to the building if you cover for me. I can grab the quiver, and if I can get a clear shot, I can end all this!”

“No!” she interrupts him fiercely. “I can't let you go out there. You'll be dead before you reach the door! We'll find another way!”

She stands up and starts shooting again so she won't have to argue with him. She knows he's right. She knows there isn't another way they can get out of this alive. But she can't bring herself to agree to it.

She targets the mob with deadly ferocity, and the men who had begun advancing on them while they talked begin to scream and fall back. But Natasha feels the lightness of her pistol, and recognizes with a sinking feeling in her gut that even the S.H.I.E.L.D. extended ammunition is running out.

“Nat!” Clint is pulling her down again, and she faces him with angry, conflicted eyes. “Nat, listen to me. You have to let me do this. You can't keep protecting me.”

Natasha sighs in frustration. Clint keeps talking, his eyes wide and on hers to make sure she's paying attention. “I'm not saying I'm not happy you saved my life. But that's what we _do._ We're partners. I'm only as good as you and you're only as good as me, and we're both only as good as we let each other be. 'Tasha, I need to go. If it'll save you, I need to go. But I need your help if I'm not gonna die, okay?”

Nat smiles in spite of herself. Clint grins back at her.

“If you really want to protect me, I'm giving you a great chance to prove it.”

They stare at each other for a few precious seconds, then Clint grips Natasha's arm and grabs his bow. He hands her her other pistol back.

“Ready?” Nat says.

One side of Clint's mouth quirks up. “If I say 'no', will you make me stay?”

“One,” Nat whispers.

“Let's be sure to tell Fury what a great time we had here.”

“Two.”

“I sure feel like I'm a part of something greater, don't you?”

“Three!”

Natasha stands up and shoots as Clint sprints for the door. Nat squeezes the triggers of her guns split seconds after the other one has finished kicking back. The automatic reload has barely finished before it's working again. Man after man collapses, grabbing shoulders or sides or screaming as a bullet hits close to them. Many run. But a weak voice, shaking with anger and pain, stops them in their tracks. Nat growls out loud. The leader is still giving orders, and from the look of it, he doesn't mean well for her.

She hears him snap, _“Egyedül és a szabadban. Hozd el!"_  before first her right pistol and then her left give off the sickening _click_ that means she's out of ammunition. She swears in Russian as she sees six of the largest men in the mob rushing at her. But they don't shoot. She sees the leader pointing her way and barking more orders.

_He still wants me alive._

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Clint slip into the building. She barely has time to acknowledge that before the first man lunges at her, and her mind snaps into survival mode. She brings the butt of her pistol down on his head, spins around and catches another in a high kick, takes down two in a move she has spent years making her own, and is throwing another to the ground when two meaty hands grab her and pin her arms to her sides.

Natasha realizes with a sick feeling-- even as she brings her foot back and kicks the man's knee hard, feeling it give and making him release her-- that the other part of herself is taking over. The part that had almost made her kill a man less than an hour ago. What scares her the most is that she can't make herself hate that part.

_I need to find a way to make a more even balance between these two,_ she thinks. 

Nat doesn't get to finish the thought before she is bodily tackled by three men. They jerk her to her feet, and she almost groans aloud as she feels the familiar sensation of a gun's barrel against her head.

As they walk her over to the leader, who has managed to get Clint's arrow removed and has a bandage wrapped around his middle, she can't help spitting at him.

He chuckles. “You have fire, spy. But you've lost.” He raises his head and yells in Hungarian, _“Gyere ide!”_

The men begin to gather in a group around Nat. She ignores their stares and addresses the leader coldly. “I'm not the one with an arrow in my stomach.”

“Perhaps we should remedy that,” the man hisses. Then suddenly, suspiciously: “Where _is_ the arrow man?”

“Right here, you _scum,”_ says Clint, and raises his bow, string pulled back and ready. Then he sees Natasha in the midst of the men. His eyes turn horrified and indecisive. “Nat-”

_“Kapd el!”_ the man howls, and men start moving toward Clint.

“Shoot, Clint!” Nat screams. And he does.

The arrow curves in a perfect arc and lands in the exact middle of the group of men. It explodes in a blur of blue gas and a chlorine-like smell, and then all Natasha knows is nothingness.

. . .  
She had been dreaming of her parents. She knows this, even as her mind swims to consciousness behind closed eyes. She had had a dream of her parents. But she can't remember what it was, or what they had looked like.

She might have wept if she hadn't woken.

“Welcome back, Agent Romanoff,” says a voice she knows well, and as she opens her eyes and focuses on Fury's face, everything comes back to her.

She bolts upright in her bed _(her bed? Why was she in a bed?)_ and gasps, “Clint!”

“He'll be fine,” Fury assures her gravely. “Just being treated for those impressive bruises. What did you do to my Hawk, Romanoff?”

Even though his tone is teasing, Natasha still winces. It strikes too close to home. How worried she was about Clint, when in the end, he ended up saving her.

Fury is studying her. “What is it?”

Nat considers saying “Nothing,” then abandons the idea. If anyone would understand, it would be Fury.

He listens, his face attentive and solemn, as she recounts, roughly and without embellish, what happened on the mission and her worry about it. Before she can go any further, he holds up a hand.

“Romanoff, let me just tell you something. When we got the call for an extraction, I was surprised. When we got there, Agent Barton was standing there, the only moving human in the whole place. He's got you, his bow, and the comm, and there're guys sprawled out unconscious everywhere. He stands up when the chopper touches down and says, 'The gas'll wear off in 24 hours. Let's get Agent Romanoff to medical attention and arrest these lowlifes.' I say, 'Barton, it looks like you did the whole dang job yourself.'” Fury laughs. “He looks me right in the eye and says, 'Fury, I would be dead right now if it wasn't for Natasha.' I say, 'Oh, that's right, you're a team.' I mean it as a joke, but he says,  
'You're blamed right, sir. And a darn good one, too.' And he just picks you up and marches on board the chopper and doesn't say another word the whole flight.”

Natasha smiles.

“So, Agent Romanoff,” Fury continues, “you can just disregard any thoughts you have of not having done your part. 'Cause let me tell you, Agent Barton'll set you straight.”

He smiles briefly at her, then says gruffly, “Better not get out of bed just yet, Agent. We've got you on an IV for gas dehydration, and it'd be a shame if you ruined all the work you and Barton put into getting out alive. Get your rest.”

He walks carefully out of the small room.

Natasha smiles again, softer.

_I'm only as good as you, and you're only as good as me._

“A team,” she says.

Then she closes her eyes again and falls into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you liked it, please leave comments.


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